Thursday, July 1, 2010

I'm back from one of the most profound, yet fun, weeks of my entire life: A 7-day Mission Trip at Camp Twinlow outside of Post Falls, Idaho. We had brought 7 of our Church's kids with us. We went out into the community, gaining skills (even me) and learning to work as teams. I had my doubts about leading a group of kids in hands-on, work projects and about sleeping in a cabin with 6 teenagers for a week but everything worked out great. I was honestly kinda sad when the trip came to an end and I can't wait to do it all over again next year.

Can you see me?

A full trip report will be available at my other blog (see here) but there was some fishing to be had. Also, remember how I had picked up another compact camera before I left? It was the Fujifilm Finepix XP 10 compact. Waterproof, Shockproof and cheap!

Let me just come out and say that I LOVED THIS CAMERA. Took 220 pictures and several videos. Here's what I appreciated so much about the camera:

Waterproof. Didn't come in handy this trip, but I'm sure it will this summer.

Shockproof. Already dropped it several times with no damage.

Great Value. $140 is an excellent price, even for something that's NOT waterproof.

Fast. Turns on quickly, snappy response to most operations.

Compact. Fits hand just right. Easy enough to carry in a pocket.

Smart. Seems to have some impressive facial recognition features.

Bright Green. Easy to find. Eye-catching to others.

The quality of the pictures themselves isn'tfantastic. But they are good enough for my purposes and better than I was expecting, after having returned the last Fuji that I'd purchased last year.

I have a busy summer of hiking, fishing and traveling. Expect to see more pictures from the XP 10!

That's great that you're working with the youth at your church! I was the College/Career Advisor at the church we used to attend in Seattle, and it was a lot of work, so I can appreciate all that you do.

Good to know you like the new camera! I'm still very happy with the Pentax Optio W60 I'm using. As you say, the quality of the photos is not fantastic, but the compactness, waterproofing and ease of use more than offsets the disadvantages.